The World's End

In my opinion, The Cornetto Trilogy is the greatest trilogy ever created. For those of you who don't know what that is, it is a group of there movies Directed by Edgar Wright, Written by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg and starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. The trilogy includes "Shaun of the Dead", "Hot Fuzz" and "The World's End".

...I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "Oh, man. That is the best trilogy ever created. He's right"... I know I am... No need to say it.

This movie is exactly what the trailer implies. Five friends meet up after almost 20 years and try to complete the pub crawl that they failed as teenagers. During said reunion, the five discover that the town that they grew up in has all been replaced by evil robots! Only they're not robots, because robot means slave... and stuff... you'll understand what I'm getting at when you see it.

Anyway, even after they discover their predicament, they are too drunk to do anything but continue the pub crawl... So, they drink pint after pint becoming more and more drunk as the world's end (AAAAHHHH) crawls up on them.

Because no one has a better idea!!!

This was a great send off to a great series of completely unrelated movies. It was hilarious, had a reference to Cornetto and had their amazing "shit just got emotional" scenes. And one of the many reasons why I think the Cornetto Trilogy is the best trilogy is because I don't know which one is better. They're all amazing. They're all completely different, and they're all hilarious. I seriously cannot put one in front of the other, and I can do that with most trilogies.

It kind of makes me sad that this will probably be the last one. I hope it's not, but I am not getting my hopes up. It's a great series, but all great things must come to an end. And if they're going to end it, "The World's End" is better than how most things end...

I'm looking at you "Lost", "The Sopranos" and other such let downs!!!

My Grade: A+

The Butler

John Cusack as Nixon? That I'm not quite sure about. But what I am sure about is that regardless of casting choices, "The Butler" is a heart wrenching, intense film about the civil rights movement of the 60s and 70s.

Forrest Whitaker stars as the man who became a butler at the White House and his conflicts with the civil rights movement and his sons choice to take a different, more out spoken path to equality in America.

The follow up to his praised film "Precious", Lee Daniels decides to take, for lack of a better term, a more mainstream story and create a phenomenal film from it. As you watch the film, he takes you on a journey through the build up, climax and decline of the Civil Rights movement of the late twentieth century and he throws you into the scene with the characters.

Fun fact about me: When I'm tired, my eye goes all

Forest Whitaker on me.

I loved everything about this movie except one thing. The acting was fantastic. The directing was amazing. The set decorating, make up and wardrobes were spot-on. I was so deeply and emotionally involved in this movie until one scene. The Obama Propaganda scene.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very indifferent when it comes to politics. I neither love or hate President Obama. And I'm well aware that the country electing a Black President is a huge part of the plot. I just felt that they put it on far too strongly, and it seemed as though it were paid for by the Obama Presidential Campaign. I was expecting Obama to come up at the end of the movie and say "I'm Barrack Obama, and I approve this message". It took me out of the movie for a minute or two. And I hate that!

Other than that little distraction, this movie was up there with the best movies I've seen this year. With the exception of John Cusack as Nixon, the casting was spot on for all of the Presidents. And Cusack wasn't bad. It's just that after Frank Langella's portrayal of the President, anything else seems sub-par.

This movie is definitely one to see in theaters.

My Grade: A-

Trailer Tuesday 8/20/13

Some should right a theme song for Trailer Tuesdays... I always feel like I should be singing one while I write these.

FRIGHT NIGHT 2 (10/1/13)

How many Vampire clichés can you find in this trailer? Also, how many scenes completely ripped off from Russia's "Night Watch" can you find in here? I only counted one, but it was enough to make me feel obligated to mention "Night Watch". In the words of Charles Barkley, "This is turable".

WADJDA (9/15/13)

Wow. APparently this is the first Saudi Arabian film, and it's directed by a woman. That's awesome. It's great seeing film spread over the world, and I had no idea Saudi Arabia had never made a film before. This looks like an awesome movie.

BEARS (4/18/14)

AAAWWWWWWWW!!!!!! They're little killers!!! They're so cute! :D

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY (12/25/13)

Why has Meryl Streep only been playing bitches lately. It makes me hate her. And Benedict Cumberbatch is reason enough for me to want to see this. Other than him, I don't really have any desire to see it.

ROMEO & JULIET (10/11/13)

Other than role my eyes when I first heard they were making yet ANOTHER adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, I first thought "I wonder how romantic it really would have been before deodorant".

100 BLOODY ACRES (6/28/13)

If you know me, you know I love dark comedies. "Tucker and Dale VS. Evil" is one of the funniest movies ever made in my opinion. And this looks very similar to it. I can't wait to watch it! I wish I had known about it 2 months ago so I could have tried to see it in Philly!

Elysium

After I saw "District 9", I had a slight obsession with Neill Blomkamp. I thought he showed great promise as a director and I couldn't wait for his next movie. Needless to say, I was extremely excited when I heard about "Elysium". Then I heard that Eminem was a possibility for the main role. As far as rapper-actors go, Eminem isn't terrible, but seriously? Eminem? Luckily he refused to be in the movie if they couldn't film in Detroit and Matt Damon got the role.

"Elysium" takes place in a futuristic world in which all of Earth is devastated from overpopulation and everywhere looks like the slums of Mumbai. The rich leave the planet to live on a space station called Elysium (OOOOOOH, That's why it's called that!) to obtain their way of life. Thus creating a not-so-subtle metaphor for the failed "Occupy Wall Street" movement.

1% of the People have 100% of the free Healthcare not 

performed by a guy with tattoos or robots. I am the 99%!!!

Max finds himself pumped with radiation in an accident at his work and is only given 5 days to live. He sets off on a mission to get up to Elysium to use one of their Medical Bays, a machine that can fix any ailment just by spinning around you. Modern Medicine has it all wrong! No Pills! Just have a Machine spin around you to fix cancer, AIDs and Whooping Cough!!!

The only thing it doesn't fix is bad ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement)

As high as my expectations were for this movie, I was only slightly disappointed. It was still a great movie. Better than a lot of the crap out there this summer. And none of my problems were with the story. It was all with the Audio. There were a lot of scenes where they had ADR, which to most people, is unnoticeable. But thanks to Film School, I don't have the privilege to ignore it anymore. Jodie Foster in particular had a lot of ADR. I've heard a lot of people say she was bad in this movie, but what I think people are confusing with bad acting is the bad ADR. But you can't notice something that you're unaware of. She wasn't terrible, just her audio was.

Sharlto Copley returned to Neill Blomkamp's set, but this time as a villain. And he was quite awesome as usual. He was evil, bad ass and funny all at the same time. This guy impresses me with every movie he's in and I'm glad he's getting the recognition and work he deserves.

"Elysium", although not as good as I had hoped, was a fun and thrilling movie that was more original than any other summer movie other there this year. More movies need to do that. As safe as reboots of old Western TV shows from the late 1940s may seem, (I'm looking at you Disney!), people will never appreciate remakes as much as they do originality. And that's not bashing all remakes. There are some phenominal remakes out there. It's just fact. Originality trumps remakes 10 out of 10 times.

Although, "Elysium" could be a rip-off of some obscure sci-fi movie that only 3 people have ever heard of and I could sound like a complete idiot to them right now.

My Grade: B+

Trailer Tuesdays 8/13/13

Hello there. Have you missed me? I sure have missed you!

HER (11/20/13)

Wow. I dig this trailer. I dig it a lot. It looks fantastic. Joaquin Phoenix looks like he brought his 'A' game as usual, as well as Spike Jonze. It looks like a very interesting concept as well. This just went up on my top ten most anticipated movies for the rest of the year.

PHILOMENA (11/1/13)

DAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMME Judi Dench... That's all I have to say about this. Looks good.

THE MONUMENT MEN (12/18/13)

George Clooney, Matt Damon, John Goodman, Bill Murray... what more do you need? This looks like a different kind of War movie and it looks interesting. Can't wait to see it.

CBGB (10/11/13)

A movie about Rock 'n' Roll's most infamous club with the most infamous toilet. Starring Alan Rickman and a slew of other celebrities, this seems like it's going to be a fun movie.

ENOUGH SAID (9/20/13)

This is James Gandolfini's second to last movie. It's such a shame when actors die before they are able to see their work. He will be missed.

ALL IS LOST (10/18/13)

A lot of people don't like movies where there is only one character with nothing but his thoughts for the majority of the film. I personally love them. It's one of the best ways to see who that character really is, and see how he or she thinks. I can't wait to see this one.

MAGIC MAGIC (8/28/13)

I'm glad to see Michael Cera doing something different. He looks creepy as hell in this movie. Although, I don't have much hope for the movie as a whole.

AMERICAN HUSTLE (12/25/13)

In David O. Russell's follow up to "Silver Linings Playbook" he brings back Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence as well as Christian Bale and Amy Adams from his film "The Fighter". It looks very different from "Silver Linings Playbook", but it looks equally as good.

LONE SURVIVOR (1/10/14)

This has a lot of actors I love in it. I'm a little skeptical about a January release which to normal people sounds like crazy talk, but trust me. Bad movies come out in January for the most part, but I think this could be the exception of next year.

THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY (12/25/13)

People are freaking about this because they think Ben Stiller is trying to out do Danny Kaye, which is completely ridiculous. The two movies, although based from the same short story, look completely different. Ben Stiller is one of the most underrated Actor/Directors out there. He has such diversity in his work. He's done ridiculous comedies with "The Cable Guy" "Zoolander" and "Tropic Thunder". He's done action movies. He's done quirky comedies like "Greenburg" and now he's making what seems to be a deep, thoughtout drama about a man who wants more with his life. Even if this ends up being a disappointment, I have so much respect for him trying. This is my most anticipated movie of this year.

We're The Millers

A lot of people wanted to see this movie to see Jennifer Aniston strip. I wanted to see it to see the white kid rap! And some RON SWANSON!!!

You can gather what "We're the Millers" is about from the trailer. It is a raunchy comedy following a drug dealer, a stripper, a homeless girl and a super dooper white kid on a major drug smuggling mission. Hilarity inn sues. Especially when Ron F***ing Swanson shows up!

Honestly, I thought this would be one of those movies where all of the funny parts are in the trailer. And apart from Nick Offerman and Will Poulter (White kid, "Son of Ranbow"), I'm not a huge fan of anyone in this movie. But it exceeded my expectations.

I'm gonna take this moment to ask a question. Do I seem like a broken record. I feel like I say the same stuff for every movie. Perhaps I just have a smaller vocabulary than previously thought, but I just don't know how else to describe these movies. Oh, well.

Anyway, this movie had me laughing throughout and even pumping my fist in celebration at some moments. Not many movies can do that.

Go see it. Or else... Nothing will happen, but still, go see it.

My Grade: B+

Fat Kid Rules the World

I just found at that Matthew Lillard from "SLC Punk" and "Scooby-Doo" directed this movie... awesome!

"Fat Kid Rules the World" begins with Troy trying to throw himself in front of a bus. But when he is saved by Marcus, his life starts to change. Marcus inspires (or forces depending on how you look at it) troy to learn how to play the drums and join a band, which gives Troy something to live for.

Once again, this is a movie I stumbled upon on Netflix instant watch, and I was not disappointed. Jacob Wysocki of Bath Boys Comedy infamy stars in the leading role. It impresses me that he can go from this...

...to movies like this and "Terri" which have more dramatic elements to them. I think he is definitely someone to look out for for years to come.

My Grade: B

Holy Crap this is based on a book?! I keep learning stuff, man!